The Game
by Kyndeyrn
Summary: I JUST LOST THE GAME! A brief oneshot about a game and Harry's soul.


Disclaimer: Accelerated Algebra 2 is pure evil.

A/N: I had totally forgotten about this story up until about an hour ago when I rediscovered it. I started it earlier in the school year and just finished it now. It's pretty much based off this stupid game my friends and I play at school so I guess I'm dedicating it to the two weirdoes who taught me it. Enjoy.

**The Game**

Harry and Ron looked up from their Potions essay when Hermione and Parvati burst into the common room giggling about something. Harry rolled his eyes and was about to return to his homework when he heard a blood curdling shriek from Hermione. He leapt to his feet, wand at the ready.

"What's wrong?" he shouted.

"I JUST LOST THE GAME!" yelled Hermione and Parvati clapped a hand to her forehead in frustration.

"You _always_ lose the game, Hermione!"

Harry and Ron traded puzzled looks. "What game?" Harry inquired.

"Don't ask!" squealed the two girls in unison.

"I'm asking." said Ron bluntly.

Parvati sighed, "Trust us; you really don't want to know. If you learn about the game you'll be condemned to play it forever."

Ron looked slightly taken aback, "Well how did you learn about it?"

"We overheard two Slytherins talking about it."

"Ah." They all returned to their homework and everything was quiet for about 20 minutes before Ron burst out.

"Arg! I can't take it anymore! What's the game?"

"You don't want to know!"

"Yes I do, it's driving me mad!"

They argued back and forth for a bit until Hermione finally relented, "Fine! I'll tell you. Harry you might want to leave if you don't want to get sucked into this."

"Nah, I'll stay, I'm curious about it too."

Hermione rolled her eye muttering, "Your loss." Then preceded into the explanation, "Ok, the game's pretty basic. If you think of it you lose, and if you lose you have to tell everyone and they lose too. Get it?"

Ron scratched his head "Lose what?"

"The game! If you think of the game you lose it!" she replied a tad bit impatiently.

"Well that's stupid."

"You're the one who wanted to know so badly!"

"I know, but I thought it would be cool or something."

"We told you not to ask. Anyway now we have half an hour to forget about the game."

The rest of the night passed uneventfully and Harry had practically forgotten about the game by the time he packed up his books and headed off to bed.

Though the next day was Saturday, Harry still arose at an early hour because of the Quidditch game he had later that morning. He rolled out of bed with a yawn, brushed his teeth, threw on some robes, grabbed his Firebolt and headed downstairs. After a quick meal of toast and coffee, he and the rest of his team proceeded down to the pitch and changed into their scarlet Quidditch robes.

Harry was only slightly nervous, after all, they were only playing Hufflepuff. He shook hands with the opposing Captain with a smirk worthy of Malfoy before mounting his broom. As predicted the match went quickly, the Gryffindor Chasers scoring points with relative ease and before long Harry saw a flash of gold out of the corner of his eye. He bolted toward it at lightning speed, reached out his hand and grasped the little sparkly ball. As his hand closed around it he opened his mouth to exclaim "We won the game!", but this reminded him of the "game" Hermione had outlined to him last night and instead, as if by magic, he was forced to say "I lost the game!" As soon as he said this he felt a sudden rush of pain, it wasn't a physical pain, but more of a ripping of his very being. A jolt went through him into the Snitch as though he had been electrocuted. But, just as suddenly as it had started, the sensation ended and he landed.

As usual there was much partying after the game, but through it all Harry had a strangely empty feeling, as though he was missing something very near and dear to him. When he mentioned this to Hermione she gave him a startled, worried look and told him to elaborate. He told her about catching the Snitch and she gave out a high pitched shriek.

"Oh, Harry! We have to see Professor Dumbledore right away!" She grabbed his hand and about dislocated his arm while pulling him through the portrait hole. They tore through the castle in a mad dash and eventually reached the guardian of Dumbledore's office. Hermione blurted out the password and, before Harry had time to question where she had learned it, they were up the stairs and she was pounding on the office door.

"Come in." came the stoic reply.

Hermione burst through the door; further stretching Harry's already much abused arm.

"What seems to be the problem Miss Granger?" asked the headmaster calmly.

"You see sir, Parvati and I overheard some Slytherins talking about this game, basically they said that if you thought of the game, you lose it and have to tell everyone around you about it, so Parvati and I have been playing it and we taught it to Harry and Ron, but Harry just lost it when he touched the Snitch and something…something weird happened, like an electric shock, when he told me this it caused me to remember something else the Slytherins said about the game being associated with Dark Magic so then we came to you as fast as we could." She said this all very quickly without taking a breath and Harry thought it a wonder that Dumbledore had managed to comprehend all of it, but the old man merely nodded, looking graver than ever.

"I know of this game of which you speak." He said slowly, "It was popular around the time I was in school, until someone cursed it. No one is quite sure who it was, but strange things started happening, not unlike the incident you just described. It was later discovered that when a wizard or witch loses the game while touching a magical object part of his soul is transferred to that object. In other words, it's an alternate way to make a Horcrux."

Dead silence followed his explanation, punctured only by as sharp gasp from Hermione. Eventually Harry spoke, "So…so part of my soul…is in this Snitch?" He drew the golden ball from his pocket. He had stolen it for reasons unknown to him at the time; he had simply felt that if he parted with the ball something bad would happen. Dumbledore nodded and Harry continued, "Is there any way to get it back?"

"Of course not! What fun would that be?" said Dumbledore as though this were very obvious. Harry looked as though he was about to cry. Dumbledore chuckled, "Calm down Harry, I'm just kidding. I don't know what was in my tea this evening, but it's made me rather odd. Never drink tea that has a purple tinge Harry." He said with a wink.

"Um, right sir, now about my soul…"

"Oh right, your soul, of course. In order to get your soul back you must win the game."

"But, sir," Hermione gasped, "that's impossible!"

"No it's not, it's just very very very very very very hard…if you don't know how" he added as an after thought.

"And sir, do you know how?" pressed the partially soulless Seeker.

"Maybe, maybe not, now if you'll excuse me, I must…"

"This is no horribly frustrating overused phrases!" Harry interrupted, "This is my soul we're talking about!"

"And you should have taken better care of it," Dumbledore scolded, "now as I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted," he shot a death glare at Harry, "I must depart for some inconveniently far away place so I can't be around to help you in your time of need, as I so often seem to do. Farewell!" and with that he strode across the room, leapt out his window, landed on a well-placed broomstick and flew off.

"Now what do I do?" Harry moaned in despair.

"I guess you'll just have to figure out how to win the game." Hermione supplied in a terribly unhelpful manner. Harry sighed and walked out the door, depression playing across his features as he turned and walked out the door. The two shuffled back to the common room in silence, each caught up in the seemingly impossible problem of winning the game. All too soon noise erupted around them as the entered the still festive room, Harry and Hermione ignored it all and made their way over to Ron who was having the time of his life with the butterbeer.

"Ron, twenty bottles of that stuff can't be good for you." Said Harry in a monotone.

"Twenty-one, actually," corrected Ron with a slur, "And relax, there's almost no alcohol in this stuff!"

"Right," commented Harry and muttered a sobering charm.

"Oh, my head!" moaned Ron as his eyes came back into focus.

"Serves you right, twenty, uh, twenty-one bottles of that stuff." Harry sighed.

Across the room Colin Creevy's camera exploded with a 'click, BOOM'. "Finally!" Ron shouted, "I loaded that thing with gun powder around bottle fifteen, I was sick of the little bugger trying to get a picture of me drunk." Harry merely stared at him, "Jeez, Harry, what's gotten into you?"

"What's come out of him is more like it." Hermione commented. Ron gave her a blank look and Hermione proceeded to fill him in on the rather unfortunate news.

"So Harry has to win the game, huh?"

"Yep."

"Well, why doesn't he just say 'I won the game'?"

"Ron, that has got to be the stupidest idea I have ever heard," Hermione said, rolling her eyes, "It's got to be rather complex, lets start with erasing your memory, maybe if you forget the game, you'll win it!"

Over the next few hours they tried everything from memory spells to dropping large heavy objects on Harry's head. Nothing seemed to work; Harry was as soulless as ever.

"Hermione stop!" Harry finally yelled after the fifth book hit his head with a dull thunk. "Can't you see it's not working? Besides, I'm still sore from that Algebra 2 book you dropped on me. Where on earth did you get that thing any way?"

Hermione shrugged, "Bought it over the summer, I enjoy doing the problems; they relax me."

Harry looked at her oddly as though struck by a sudden epiphany, "You really are insane…"

Hermione only shrugged again.

"Harry, why don't you do what I suggested originally, just say 'I won the game'." Ron mentioned with a sigh.

"Well, it beats the heck out of a poke in the head with a sharp stick, and I can say that from experience now. Well here it goes, I won the game." A feeling of cold energy passed through Harry's hand where he was grasping the snitch, it was a lovely feeling, like, well, like one's soul reentering his body through his hand. Harry shuddered, then grinned, "It's back!"

"I told you it would work!" Ron yelled gleefully at Hermione, "Look, Harry got all those bruises for nothing!"

Hermione bit her lip, "Sorry Harry, I just though it would be more complex, you know? It is Dark Magic after all."

"That's fine," Said Harry who was just happy to have his soul back, "Let's just promise to never play the game again."

"Now that, Harry," said Dumbledore's voice magically out of nowhere "Is impossible."

More A/N: Yeah, kind of odd, I know. Hope you liked it! Now you know you just want to click that little blue button and tell me what you thought, right?


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